


Offering

by Eida



Category: Lady of the Shard (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 09:09:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13050939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eida/pseuds/Eida
Summary: A goddess makes an offering to her high priestess.





	Offering

**Author's Note:**

  * For [13lackbirds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/13lackbirds/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, 13lackbirds! I hope you enjoy this fic.

The All-Goddess, the most powerful deity in the known universe, wielder of the powers of creation, was preparing to make pancakes.

A corner of her mind which sounded rather like the Old God whispered _Why not try dry toast instead?_

The All-Goddess snorted. There was some joke hidden in that thought, but the All-Goddess wasn't entirely sure what it was, and the echoes of the Old God which sometimes resounded within her didn't seem inclined to share.

 _I don't think the High Priestess would enjoy dry toast as much as pancakes,_ the All-Goddess thought to... herself? The part of her that had once been the Old God, or simply the memory of the Old God still echoing within her?

Time enough to ponder questions of identity later. The High Priestess was an early riser, and the All-Goddess hoped to surprise her with breakfast in bed.

The All-Goddess felt a presence behind her; she glanced over her shoulder, seeing a robed acolyte. He made a quick greeting, gave a little bow, and hurried off to the far side of the large temple kitchen.

The All-Goddess certainly hadn't intended to monopolize this corner of the kitchen—and in any case, she was in here early enough that most of the regular breakfast preparations for the temple wouldn't begin in earnest while yet—but understandably, those who served the temple tended to defer to her... and defer rather more than the All-Goddess sometimes preferred. Part of it was awe and devotion, and part of it, no doubt, was guilt.

The All-Goddess hardly blamed the people for renouncing her, back when she'd been the Radiant Goddess and the Old God had returned. The Old God had been powerful enough to enforce her will on the mortals she'd created. There would have been little point in resisting.

But the Acolyte—who was now High Priestess—had resisted nevertheless. Even then, if not for the previous Phoenix's spirit, she would have likely been completely brainwashed by the Old God, remembering nothing of the Radiant Goddess she'd once loved and for whom she'd once chanced the Old God's wrath.

And now the Old God's power belonged to the All-Goddess.

The All-Goddess hoped to make better use of it.

 _You have all the powers of creation. You could literally create the pancakes. Wave your hand, and bam, pancakes,_ came another thought from the corner of her mind. _No need to mess around in the kitchen._

But the All-Goddess _wanted_ to mess around in the kitchen.

She remembered being simply human. The legendary temple girl, they called her. Faithful in offerings, faithful in prayer...

_Until the god you served stopped meeting your standards._

The All-Goddess sighed. _Of course. People must do what they think is right, not meekly serve a god simply because they are mortals and the god is a god._

_But I never stopped being faithful, in one way. I never stopped loving the Old God, who'd once loved me. Who gave me a gift of herself._

_Who gave me all of herself, at the end._

The All-Goddess turned back to her task, pulling what ingredients she needed out from the cupboards and icebox.

Flour. Baking powder. Salt. Sugar. Eggs. Milk.

Time. Effort. The desire to create, with one's own hands, something to give nourishment to oneself or another—or both.

Dry ingredients into the bowl first, and gently, so as not to create a dreadful floury mess all over this well-kept kitchen, then the milk, and then...

With a quick sharp rap of the egg against the edge of the bowl, the shell shattered, and she poured the egg's contents into the bowl... dragging a stray shard of shell along with them.

The All-Goddess paused a moment, looking into the bowl. Yes, she was quite certain she'd seen a bit of shell fall down with the rest of the yolk and white... but it was nowhere to be seen. Admittedly, it might be a bit difficult to spot a white eggshell on a backdrop of white flour, white sugar, and white milk.

Cautiously, she poked at the not-yet-fully-mixed pancake batter with a spoon, trying to locate the shell, and possibly hiding it even further in the floury depths.

With a sigh, the All-Goddess summoned up her powers—the very power that had first shaped the universe; the divine, majestic force that truly marked her as the All-Goddess...

...and used it to quickly and quietly locate and uncreate the tiny bit of eggshell hiding in the bowl. Perhaps it was cheating, but at least this way there'd be no unexpected crunchiness in the High Priestess's breakfast.

 _Truly, that was an excellent use of the godly power that was given to you,_ came another thought.

Well, if it helped make her Acolyte's morning a little brighter, the All-Goddess thought, then it most certainly was.

She took up a whisk and began to mix.

The All-Goddess remembered, long ago, back when she'd been mortal, working in the Old God's temple, how all the little chores to keep the temple clean and beautiful had seemed sacred—no less so than speaking prayers or singing hymns or laying offerings on the altar.

And wasn't work a sort of offering?

Back when the All-Goddess had been the Radiant Goddess, she had often received food offerings from those who served in her temple, and she had appreciated both the physical offerings themselves and the love and labor that had gone into creating them.

Her Acolyte had always gone a little further. A little extra flourish, a little extra effort to create a pleasing presentation. Pancakes, fruit, and vegetarian sausage, arranged to look like a bear's face; stuffed french toast dusted with powdered sugar and an artful drizzle of fruit syrup; oatmeal sweetened with brown sugar and topped with berries in a star design...

_And no dry toast._

No, the Acolyte had certainly never left dry toast. Each thing her Acolyte had brought before the Radiant Goddess's altar had been a labor of love, and the Goddess had loved her for it.

It wasn't simply the devotion of a mortal to a goddess; it was something deeper. Something wonderful. 

Love.

The Radiant Goddess had feared it, once; she'd been on the other side of a mortal-goddess romance, and _that..._ hadn't gone perfectly well.

And yet she'd cherished it even so. Even in her long slumber, the Radiant Goddess's dreams had brushed against the Acolyte's; even after her waking, even fearing that a relationship between them could lead to nothing good, she'd found it hard to force herself to push the Acolyte away.

The All-Goddess greased the skillet and turned on the stove. After the pan was warmed through, she measured out batter and poured it onto the hot pan.

Then she waited. Bubbles began to form at the edges of the pancake; carefully, the All-Goddess nudged the corner of the pancake, lifting it to see if the underside was done. Finding it to be golden-brown, she flipped it, and waited again.

One pancake after another; a series of actions, repeated. It was soothing, in a way.

The work she'd done back so long ago, in her days as a human serving in the Old God's temple, had often been much the same. Sweeping out the temple courtyard, wiping down bannisters, or pulling weeds out from the temple walkway, had been almost meditative, at times—chores that gave her time to think.

But, the All-Goddess reflected, finding that she'd left the pancake just a little too long on the heat, cooking was just a touch more time-sensitive than sweeping. With a sigh, she set the slightly-burnt pancake off to one side. She'd eat it herself.

Had her Acolyte ever burned pancakes like this? Perhaps. But if she had, she certainly hadn't offered any at the goddess's altar.

Of course she hadn't. It wouldn't have been suitable to give anything subpar to the deity you served...

...and you never wanted to give anything but the best to the person you loved.

The All-Goddess smiled. And this, then, would be her offering—an offering from a goddess to her high priestess, who was now something of a goddess in her own right with the small shard of divinity in her forehead.

And in any case—the High Priestess had saved the universe. Had it not been for her, the Old God would have unmade everything.

Had it not been for the heart so great that it could feel empathy for the Old God, even as the Old God had prepared to destroy the entire universe, then all would have been lost.

If anything was worth worshipping in this universe, then surely love was.

The pancakes were done, now, stacked on two plates. The All-Goddess topped them with butter and syrup. Quickly, she put everything away and hurried back to her chambers, where she'd left the High Priestess asleep—no small feat, given what an early riser the High Priestess was.

But the All-Goddess had managed to be even earlier; the High Priestess was still curled up in bed, cuddling a pillow to her chest in the absence of her lover.

The All-Goddess smiled at the sight. “Good morning,” she said.

“Mmh?” The High Priestess stirred, and, moments later, she was sitting up, blinking sleepily. Her long hair, usually worn in a tight bun, hung in loose waves down her back. “Oh! Good morni—are those...?”

“I made us breakfast,” said the All-Goddess.

“You... you made those for me?” said the High Priestess, her eyes shining. “Oh—you didn't have to do that for me—but thank you! They look wonderful!” She smiled broadly, her cheeks flushing, pleasure written clearly on her face.

“Do you want to eat in here? I thought we might have breakfast in bed,” said the All-Goddess. There was, of course, the risk of syrup on the sheets... but sheets could be washed, and there was something comfortably domestic about the thought of eating in here.

“Oh! Sure!” said the High Priestess. She laughed. “That sounds really nice!”

And the All-Goddess presented her offering—pancakes, made with love and devotion, rendered up unto the High Priestess who had once been called Acolyte, she who had saved the universe from the Old God's wrath not with martial strength, but with love.

And love glowed pure in the High Priestess's eyes, and it flowed warm through the All-Goddess's veins, and even in the corners of her mind that sometimes whispered in the Old God's voice, love echoed in the thought:

_What a fine picture this is—two total dorks who somehow fell in love despite the odds; a goddess who was foolish enough to fall for a mortal, and found a happy ending anyways._

The All-Goddess looked over at the High Priestess, whose mouth was full of pancakes, and thought _Yes. A happy ending._

_For all of us._

And it seemed somehow fitting that something so divine as love could be symbolized by something so seemingly mundane as pancakes, and with that thought in mind, and the person she had beside her, the All-Goddess found that even the slightly-burnt pancake she'd made tasted absolutely delicious.


End file.
